Dunoon woman Anitra Wenden is embarking on an adventure to paddle the world’s third longest navigable river system – the Murray River in Victoria. As a marine biologist, Anitra has a great love of water, but said her surprise at discovering Australia had one of the longest navigable river systems in the world inspired the adventurer in her.

 “Every journey needs a destination - the best journey needs to have something you head towards -it needs to be special for you.” – Anitra Wenden

As a child, Anitra Wenden grew up watching the Storm Boy, telling the tale of Mr Percival the pelican and his relationship to a young boy on the Murray River in Victoria.

“That began my unique romance with Australia’s largest river system,” Anitra said. 

Having a symbolic destination point is important part of her adventures.

Now, Anitra and her friend Patty McGhee are embarking on ten-week, 2,300 km journey of kayaking down the Murray Darling River system from its source to the ocean - ending at Koorong in South Australia where the river flows into the Southern Ocean. 

Anitra lives in Dunoon on a 30-acre property, and while she doesn’t have a lot of experience kayaking, she has a life long love of the ocean and has done a lot of adventuring.

As well as being a marine biologist, she’s a pharmacist who volunteers her time at hospitals in Cambodia, helping to educate other health workers who have less knowledge about the craft of pharmacy.

Her adventure begins this weekend, as she and Patty jump into their 7.3 metre long sea kayak and begin their first week of paddling down the most difficult stretch of the fast running narrow Murray River.

Anitra's sea kayak.

“The now is snow melt starting now,” she said. “The first week of our journey will be hard, so Patty and I have our support crew flowing us along the river in case we get into trouble.”

The adventure doesn’t daunt her. Anitra said in the past, she’s bushwalked, backpacked, skied and walked the Camino to Santiago trail.

The idea for the adventure started when she and Patty both discovered they were born in January 1964 and the two of them formed a strong connection and desire for adventure.

“Neither of us are experienced paddlers but I said to her ‘after a week down the river, you’ll be an expert,” she laughed.

“I’ve had a practice paddle with patty recently at lake Ainsworth and we’ve been down the Wilson’s River to Coraki together, but apart from that we haven’t a lot of experience together.

“Friends took us to Lake Ainsworth and made us tip out of the boat twice with our rubber kayak skirts attached and practice self-rescue by climbing back into the boat when we were in the water.

“It was really hard, but we achieved it with some degree of grace and athletic style.

“I did paddle a rubber raft down the Franklin River twice though,” she laughed.

Anitra and Patty have spent time gathering supplies to take in their kayak for their long journey, including cooking and camping gear, food and a solar system to recharge their phones – essential so they have a GPS connection to work out where they are while travelling on the journey.

“I’ve been a bushwalked for a long time and used to carrying everything on my back so this feels like a luxury to be able to take things in a boat.”

While Anitra said they will be able to go to towns and villages close to the river to get fresh food supplies, there will be one stretch of the journey - past Mildura - where for a week they will be cut off and will have to be self-sufficient.

“We love visiting bakeries in small towns and are calling this our coffee scroll tour of southern Australia,” she laughed.

Part of the attraction of the river journey for Anitra is travelling slow.

“You get to see stuff as you are moving slowly and through it we’ll meet people from all walks of life and get to talk to them.

“When you walk you cover about five kilometres an hour – it’s about the same on a slow river, paddling.

“I’m hoping it will be like my slow canal boat trip in Britain – that was a fantastic way of seeing the countryside and meeting people.

“On the canals, I opened and closed 900 locks and had hundreds of conversations with people.

“I hope us being in a kayak prompts people to engage with us.”

It’s not just meeting people that excites Anita, she also loves the natural environment.

“I’m equally drawn to the beauty, solitude and magical moments like silently gliding and seeing a platypus. 

“I’ve created a Facebook page called Patty and Anitra’s excellent adventure and take photos and make anecdotal observations each day.”

While she’s an adventurer these days, Anitra has spent many years working as a marine biologist and applied scientist.

She’s also spent two summers in Antarctica scuba diving there as part of the scientific work she was doing.

“Then I had my son and for 15 years, my life was about raising a baby,” she said. “Our holidays were home based and I felt frustrated and disconnected from my great passion.

“My husband died when my son was 15, and when his schooling finished, I restarted my dedication to the adventuring life.

“Since then, I’ve made 12 trips to Cambodia, been to Mount Everest base camp with my son and skiied japan.

“Then two years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through chemotherapy and radiation for 12 months.

“Now, because I have a confirmed BRCA 2 defect inherited from my mother, my sense of automatically assuming I will live till I was 90 has shifted.

"It fuelled my don’t dream it do it approach to life.”\

Now, Anitra is redirecting her passion for water into a journey that she hopes will also bring attention to the plight of the Murray Darling river system.

“It’s an issue that’s so broadly recognised in Australia that when I mention I’m paddling the Murray, people’s most common response is ‘will there be enough water there to paddle?

“I also used to think it was a muddy, turbulent ditch full of carp that farmers squabbling over – and the city of Adelaide gets the worst tasting drinking water from it.

“But when I watched an episode of Backroads on TV about the Murray River, I was struck by i’s beauty and it challenged my assumption.

“That’s when I found out it’s the third longest navigable river in the world. Here I was at 54 and I didn’t know that – it’s only beaten by the Amazon and the Nile rivers.

“I felt kind of ashamed I didn’t know and I’m going to see it for myself.

“There is a water crisis in Australia and we can’t take it for granted that the water will be there in future.”

Anitra in Cambodia, training doctors in pharmacology.

As well as wanting to draw attention to the water security crisis in Australia, Anitra has been helping hospitals in Cambodia, by training them in pharmacology.

“When I moved to the Northern Rivers, I wanted to reinvent myself, so I went back to uni and retrained as a pharmacist,” she said.

“I liked the new science and the academic and intellectual endeavour.

“Most professions have pinnacle point at the age of 40 and people see you as less relevant, vital and energetic. There are few professions you get a boost for being viewed as older.

“My plan was to be a pharmacist as I became white haired.

“When my husband died, I volunteered as a as pharmacist in Cambodia and it was such a gratifying experience.

“I went to Siem Reap as a pharmacy educator and work with doctors, training them to trouble shoot in pharmacy.

“I have better training than they do so I mentor them a few times a year and give lectures.

" I also work with pharmacists to develop clinical pharmacy skills in a country with lower training standards. 

“There’s nothing special about me - I’m just an ordinary pharmacist, but I’m better trained and have better knowledge.”

Now, as she departs on her journey down the Murray River, Anitra laughed saying the biggest worry was if her friendship with Patty will stay strong through the ten-week journey.

“We’ve never spent 24 hours in each other’s company before,’ Anitra laughed. “I hope we are still friends after ten weeks strapped into a boat together.”

The women are due to come home in early December.